Texas over Time: Masonic Grand Lodge of Texas, Waco

Texas has changed quite a bit over the years, as is readily seen in our vast photograph collection. To help bring some of those changes to life, we’ve created a “Texas over Time” series of gifs that will illustrate the construction and renovations of buildings, changing aerial views, and more. Our collections are especially strong on Waco and Baylor images, but look for some views beyond the Heart of Texas, too.

The Waco Masonic Lodge, also known as The Masonic Grand Lodge of Texas, is the headquarters for the Texas Freemasons. It is located at 715 Columbus Avenue. The original headquarters were in Houston but were moved to Waco during the early 1900s.

Many noted figures in Texas and Baylor history were freemasons, including Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, R.E.B. Baylor, George W. Truett, and many of Baylor’s presidents.

The building is intended to be modeled after King Solomon’s temple.

Here’s a Flickr set of the images used to compiled this animation (plus a few more of the Masonic Grand Lodge), should you want to examine each individually. Most of the pictures are scanned from negatives in the Fred Marlar photographic collection. Enjoy!